promising new battery tech; StoreDot’s Bio-Organic Battery Tech Can Charge From Flat To Full In 30 Seconds | TechCrunch

StoreDot’s Bio-Organic Battery Tech Can Charge From Flat To Full In 30 Seconds | TechCrunch
StoreDot’s original focus for the nano-crystals was memory chips — which could write faster than traditional flash memory. It has also demoed an image sensor using the technology. But it’s now shifted its focus to what it sees as the two most promising near-term routes to commercialize the technology: fast-charging smartphone batteries, and cadmium-free displays — with its nano-crystal tech offering a cheaper and non-toxic alternative to cadmium in screens.
“We’ve demonstrated an iPhone display that the active material which emits light is a bio-organic material that is created by our compounds. This will be the first ever bio-organic display,” says Myersdorf. “We already demonstrated all the colours… we can bring the entire RGB spectrum for the display so now it’s all a matter of being able to reach the lifetime and the efficiency similar to cadmium.”
The big challenge for StoreDot is getting an industry that’s used to building electronics one way to switch to something new and different, says Myersdorf — even though that alternative may ultimately be cheaper and less toxic than existing manufacturing materials and processes.
“The only disadvantage is that the industry is not ready for it. The ecosystem is not ready,” he says. ”This is a new type of material, with new physics, new chemistry, that is actually coming from nature… Everything we do we try to imitate and to follow and to let nature take its course. To create these nano-crystals we don’t need a huge fabrication facility. We mix some basic elements — like hydrogen, nitrogen, helium.”
Myersdorf said StoreDot is therefore considering building its own facility to produce its bio-organic smartphone batteries, as a way to speed up their entry to market.
“Our challenge is not only stabilizing our own material but to change the entire ecosystem around the manufacturing of semi-conductor and batteries in order to be able to accommodate bio-organic material,” he adds.